GUELPH — Guelph Storm coach Scott Walker wants this year's team to be confident, not cocky.

"This game can be humbling," Walker said Tuesday as the Storm opened its training camp with fitness testing of 50 players.

"Confidence is great, it makes you better and makes your team better, but there's a fine line between confidence and cocky and thinking you're just going to throw your gear on and win games at this level," Walker said.

Players were put through fitness testing at the Sleeman Centre and the Lourdes high school gym Tuesday, with on-ice sessions and scrimmages starting on Wednesday.

Walker feels the excitement in the air, but doesn't want the players to get over-confident.

"You hope there's a positive excitement, but you've got to remember that these are young athletes who can get it in their head and fool themselves that things are going to be easy," Walker said.

"We've all seen that happen, where certain people think you'll be good or pick you to finish in a certain place and then you fall flat on your face."

Walker said it's important that the players understand how hard it is to be successful and how much work it takes.

"You can definitely feel a confidence amongst the players, which I'm happy about," the coach said, "but you have to understand that there are no easy games in the Ontario Hockey League."

With an older team that is expected to take a run at a conference title, eight of who are drafted by the National Hockey League, optimism certainly abounds heading into camp.

"There's a lot more excitement this year," captain Matt Finn said.

"When you're going into a year where you know you're one of the top teams in the league and there's a buzz around the dressing room already on the first day of training camp, it's a really cool feeling," the third-year defenceman said.

"It's the first time I've felt it like this on this team."

Finn said the fact that team management has said it will make moves to strengthen the team to make it a challenger only buoys the enthusiasm of the players.

"We're all on the same page here. We're going for it," Finn said. "Everyone's buying in. Everyone showed up in great shape and it's going to show during the year."

The 50 players in camp include three free agents. Two more free agents will join the group on Friday after most of the 16-year-olds that won't make the team this year have left camp.

There's plenty of beef in camp.

Of the 50 players in camp, 34 of them are six feet or taller and 13 of them weigh in excess of 200 pounds. Both categories are led by 6-foot-7, 231-pound Justin Auger.

Five of the six goalies are over six feet.

Players are divided into two squads, with two on and off-ice workout schedules Wednesday and Thursday and scrimmages on both days at 10:45 a.m. and 5:10 p.m.

First of four exhibition game goes Sunday afternoon in Port Credit against the Mississauga Steelheads.